Good morning. On behalf of my family, I would like to thank everyone for joining us today to mourn the passing–but also to celebrate the life—of my father, Robert Gregory, known to many as Mister or Detective or Officer, or Robert or Bob or Greg. His passing leaves us with deep sorrow, but that sorrow is so painful because it is in proportion to the abiding, soaring love we have for him. We hurt so much because we love so much, not because of regrets or “might have beens.” The fact is, the man we mourn today lived a full life and gave so much to so many that we are left with an abundance of memories to last several lifetimes. Many have been shared these past few days and weeks, and our family is grateful for those stories. I will share a few here.
Two things were so important to Dad: work and family. First, work. Work was a means to an end—that is, it allowed Dad to provide for his family—but he also enjoyed so many experiences and the people with whom he worked.
Some of his many jobs included:
Tupperware stock clerk
McCarthy’s Department Store driver
Security detail at Mark Stevens
St. Johnsbury Trucking Interoffice Mailman
Custodian, Woonsocket School Department
Zamboni Driver, Mt. St. Charles Arena
Anchor Subaru Courtesy Van Driver
Police Officer and Detective
My father worked hard our whole lives. That is, I don’t think he was ever without a full-time job and a part-time job or two. He saw great purpose in work—money, opportunities for his family and a willingness to help—but he also enjoyed being around people. I once asked him how he became a police officer and why he wanted to become one. He told me that he conferred with his father one day about working at the rubber mill or becoming a cop. His father, whom he loved, respected and revered, told him, “Well, if you take the mill job and the mill burns down, you’re out of a job. If you become a cop and the station burns down, they’ve got to build another one, now don’t they?” And as to the job—one that spanned twenty-eight years in service to the citizens of Woonsocket, Rhode Island – he explained that there will always be a lot of people who need assistance, and he wanted to do his part. He just wanted to help.
And he was a stand-up colleague as well. To help celebrate Dad’s 83rd birthday—he was relatively house-bound at that time and had limited contact with friends–I asked his colleagues with whom he served on the police force to email good wishes. Recollections from fellow officers included descriptions that included “professional,” “a gentleman,” and a “kind man.” One man wrote, “You deserve all the happiness you can get. You are a gentleman and treated everyone with respect, which made you a great cop.”
From another: “I have many great memories of our days working together at the station, both the old one and the new one. Great, funny times, and the many, many calls we answered together. Working with professionals like yourself always made the job easier.”
And this one from Facebook: “I’m not crazy about cops, and those who know me know why. But this was a good man and I respected him. RIP, Mr. G.”
Dad was very proud of his service, and his colleagues appreciated him as well.
In addition to his many jobs, Robert Gregory was an active family man. He and Mom would take us for ice cream at the Milk Can, movies at the Rustic, and, occasionally, dinner at Howard Johnsons. We enjoyed modest but cherished family summer vacations to Cape Cod. Our favorite, in retrospect, was when Dad would approach us and ask, “Hey, you wanna go for a ride?” And it didn’t matter where, as long as we were with him. I have no idea how he found the time to serve as a Little League baseball coach. Somehow, he found the time to get us up at 5 am for hockey practices. In later years he and my mother, his love and wife of 62 years, worked tirelessly and made so many sacrifices to pay for our college tuitions and assistance with home down payments and home repairs. They saved money so they could assist each and every grandchild with college tuition assistance. In doing so, they taught us lessons about the centrality of family, of supporting one another, of furthering the dreams of their children and grandchildren. In these children and grandchildren reside the fruits of their labor, and in that way, my father’s legacy will endure for a long, long time to come.
But fathers are influential in ways they may never have planned.
For instance, on my father’s 78th birthday, my brother Tim sent Dad a card in which Tim wrote, “I do think of you lots, Dad,” adding, “I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but I think of you EVERY time I put a card or anything in an envelope. I remember you showing me how to put a card in an envelope so that when the person opened it the front would be right in front of them! SO SOMETHING YOU SAID REALLY DID SINK IN!”
At times when teen boys would like a little privacy, a little anonymity, my father had a reach and a watch over us that seemingly knew no bounds. I once got a speeding ticket from a Newport police officer while coming home from college and racing to Woonsocket. I was determined to keep it quiet and pay the ticket quickly to put it behind me. Two days later, as I packed up to go back to school, my father asked,
“You got everything?”
“Yep.”
“You sure? You’re all set?”
“Uh huh.”
“MM hmm. You got enough money to pay that speeding ticket?”
(The officer had remembered meeting my father at a recent statewide police meeting, one of the rare times I begrudged my father for being so damned personable!)
Both brothers Kevin and Tim can attest to the many, many times we attempted to enter our home later at night than our folks would have liked. We’d tiptoe silently in the darkness through the kitchen, hoping to pass the living room undisturbed when, in the still of the darkness, emanating from the recliner Dad enjoyed so much, we’d hear, “Hi,” from the man who always slept with one eye open. To catch us, we thought, but really to keep us safe and protected and accounted for and loved, we now know. The man is now an angel in heaven, that eye forever open to keep watch over us.
There are people in this world who do not get the headlines. They don’t get the publicity. They don’t always get public accolades. But these are people who carry a community, carry a family, carry their friends, carry us. My mother, famously known for choosing her greeting cards with deliberateness and great care, presented to my father such a card on his last birthday, his 84th. The carefully worded card read:
“ON YOUR BIRTHDAY, I’M THINKING OF ALL THE TIMES IN OUR MARRIAGE WHEN I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU.
“THANK YOU FOR PUTTING FAMILY FIRST . . . FOR BEING MY SUPPORT IN ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING I DO . . . FOR BEING HERE FOR THE LONG HAUL.
“LOVE YOU, TODAY AND ALWAYS.” ALL MY LOVE DEE. XOX
And now it’s our task to move forward without his physical presence but with his pulsating, loving presence in our hearts. We now enjoy the privilege to carry him around, so he will never leave us. To help us in our healing, and to send him off to heaven for a deserved rest, I close with a short prayer from Cardinal John Henry Newman:
May God support us
All the day long
Til the shadows lengthen
And the busy world is hushed
And the fever of life is over
And our work is done.
Then in His mercy
May God give us a safe lodging
And a holy rest
And peace at the last.
Amen.
tags: grief, father, Dad, sadness, funeral, mourning, commemorate, tribute
cgregoryphd.com 